# Can you build large applications using Ruby?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-you-build-large-applications-using-ruby/95776>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 13, 2006, 1:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-you-build-large-applications-using-ruby/95776 "2006-06-13T13:14:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lassethomsen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/fbc32d/32.png) [@lassethomsen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lassethomsen)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 1:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-you-build-large-applications-using-ruby/95776/1 "2006-06-13T13:14:37Z")

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Hi.

I have been reading all this hype about Rails, and as a webframe it is  
quiet promising. And we are consindering basing more of our products on  
Rails, but since some of our products are used as both web and  
standalone it would be nice if they could share a lot.

I know people are using Ruby for lots of medium projects, but in my  
google i havnt found anything that looks like a larger piece of  
software. Can you build f.ex a Word clone in ruby or a browser like  
Firefox?  
Im guessing that you could build it in Ruby, hey you could proberly do  
it in perl, but how about the performance, since ruby is an interpreted  
language im worried about the performance, can anyone give me an idea of  
how well Ruby performs with larger GUI applicantions?

Best Regards  
Lasse Thomsen

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lassethomsen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/fbc32d/32.png) [@lassethomsen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lassethomsen)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-you-build-large-applications-using-ruby/95776/2 "2006-06-13T14:27:29Z")

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Hey Lasse,

> Can you build f.ex a Word clone in ruby or a browser like Firefox?

Yes, you can build a Word clone, or a browser like Firefox. In fact,  
for the Firefox thing, you could use GTK and and the GtkMozEmbed  
widget, which is the entire browser itself, all you have to do is  
connect to its signals and do what you will with them.

> Im guessing that you could build it in Ruby, hey you could proberly do  
> it in perl, but how about the performance, since ruby is an interpreted  
> language im worried about the performance, can anyone give me an idea of  
> how well Ruby performs with larger GUI applicantions?

You could do it in Perl, you could also do it in Python. Both of these  
are better options than Ruby, performance-wise.

If you want to use Ruby for GUI development, you probably want to use  
the most efficient toolkit, Qt for example is faster than GTK.

wxRuby is an unmotivated project (unlike wxPython), which is aimed to  
bring Ruby bindings for wxWidgets, the cross-platform GUI toolkit.

I hope this gives you enough information to make a decision. Though it  
doesn’t hurt to use Ruby, I mean… look at all the other people who  
do? 🙂